AustLit

I am particularly excited about this issue because I love archives. I am mostly talking about institutional archive spaces (archive from Greek arkhe 'government' and arkheia 'public records'), though I know our understandings of the 'archive' have far exceeded those limitations. Bear with me: for I love the perverse formalities of entering these strange cloistered spaces, often within libraries and other university or state institutions—i.e. checking my bag into a locker, entering a space of intense quiet, leafing through physical boxes and files that are transported from a dank storeroom and delivered to my desk, turning pages quietly and carefully, using curtain weights or a foam support to protect old books while perusing their pages, using gloves for special documents, running outside for a quick muesli bar to stop my stomach rumbling too loudly. I love the idea that these documents have been collected by someone. or by many people; that they have been considered worthy of curation, have been gifted to or purchased by an institution that will then catalogue those materials according to an impersonal ordering system, and store them for some future eye to cast itself over. I say 'I love these things but they also bother me a great deal, generating a conflict within me that sparks something—some kind of energy—too.' (Jessica L. Wilkinson : Editorial introduction)